My son in law works part time for us and last Friday I told him to bring his 45 Blackhawk out and we'd shoot some long range. We have 12"x12" gongs every hundred yards from 400 to 1000. He'd never shot past 20-30 yards before so I showed him how to hold his front sight and we started blasting some ammo off at 400 yards.
About half was 7gr Green Dot and half was 17.5gr 2400, both with 255 gr NOE RF. He had a ball and even hit it a couple times. We also shot at some bowling pins laying at 100 yards and he hit a few of those too. I think it frustrated him that I hit so much, but I have a little more practice than him.
He said that when I told him we were going to hit long range he thought I was talking about 100-150 yards.
I said "Really? We've been shooting bowling pins at 100 yards". He couldnt believe he was actually doing that good at 400 (most people dont believe you can do it).
After we fired off a couple hundred rounds we went back to work, but he is hooked. If I rework the trigger for him he'll probably do way better, but he did darn good for the first time. If you can hit a 12x 12 plate at that distance you've accomplished something with your shooting AND loading in my opinion.